Donald Trump
CEO, chairman, president
Trump Hotel & Casino Resorts
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The most famous, or infamous, real estate developer in the United States has been a media magnet since he splashed onto the New York development scene in the 1980s. Trump Hotel & Casino's properties -- including three hotel casinos in Atlantic City, NJ and a riverboat casino in Indiana -- always attract attention. Details about The Donald's personal life regularly crop up in tabloids.
But there's no denying Trump knows how to develop and manage real estate. His flagship properties in Atlantic City have consistently generated strong revenue, although its growth rate has been flat or down the last few years. Trump never has a problem filling his luxury apartment buildings in New York City. And he is constantly working on new projects, including apartments, golf courses, office buildings and, of course, casinos.
Trump's publicly-traded company increased its cash by 20 percent last year, while cutting operating expenses. Standard & Poors raised Trump Hotel & Casino's credit rating twice since December, although Trump bonds still carry junk ratings. And despite the company's debt problems, it still finds ways to borrow money; Trump recently got a $70 million credit line that was used to retire $62 million in bonds and repay a $5 million working capital loan.
He's also had some successes as a stock investor. For instance, Trump made millions during the "Black Monday" crash in October 1987. And Trump now thinks it may be time to re-enter the stock market. "For the first time in a long time, I'm thinking about going into the stock market, and that's not my business," Trump told Fox News last week.
Trump's record in creating wealth for others is mixed, at best, largely because his empire-building has rested on a foundation of borrowing money. Despite the success of his casinos and hotels, Trump in the early 1990s came close to being bankrupt (though it never reached the point where he had to formally file for bankruptcy) because of bank debts that neared the $2 billion mark. Although Trump has made a personal comeback, his public company remains mired in debt, including more than $1.5 billion due in the 2005-2006 period. "The challenge for us remains the overall debt service of the company," Trump wrote in the 2001 annual report of Trump Hotel & Casino. "Our efforts to refinance or modify the terms of our public debt go on unabated."
Those "efforts" showed that not even bankruptcy softened Trump's brash way of doing business. Last November he tried to force a debt restructuring by threatening to withhold interest payments, alienating the bond investor community so much that the company canceled a $470 million bond offering planned for this year. "We've spoken with some shareholders who say, 'It doesn't matter what they pay, we're not going to invest with him,' " debt analyst John Maxwell told Bloomberg News in May. "This one isn't about price, it's about comfort with the management."
Trump Hotel & Casino stock has also been an unprofitable long-term holding so far:
Since going public in 1995, the company has seen its share price drop 87 percent while entirely missing out on the mostly-tech-driven bull market of the late 1990s.
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